At the graveside service

McKenzie:    It's a nice grave marker.

Koch:           I'm glad I could buy it for you.  It's styrofoam.

Kramer:        Listen, Dave, is that thing insured?  Can we perhaps talk after refreshments?

Koch:            My money will be happy to talk to your money anytime, Don.

McKenzie:     No one understands.  I tried my best.  When I applied for this job, I never claimed that I could train and develop dancers to realize their greatest potentials. 

Koch:            Don't blame yourself.  All that transcendental voodoo googoo gummed up your brain and you tried to philosophize ABT to greatness.

Kramer:        You know, Dave.  Have you thought about our new Insure-Your-Risks-by-Hiding-Your-Risks-From-the-Public Excess Risk Coverage for your refineries?  We've been churning out these policies – I mean, turning out these policies faster than a Cornejo brisé volé.

Koch:            My money will be happy to talk to your money anytime, Don.

McKenzie:     If that Baryshnikov had just stayed where he was supposed to stay, my life would have been so much easier. 

Koch:           Take it easy on yourself.  Trust me.  That's why I've set up the Americans for Prosperity in Art. I've been talking to Ratmansky and I have a list of all the dancers in the world that he would like to have, and I've gone out and bought them.  We're going to set up a new company on the Met Opera artistic model:  an anonymous corps de ballet with all-imported principals. We're going to turn it over to the Met Opera to run - you know, like the Mariinsky and Royal Opera House.  The Met Opera has kept me away from their big table long enough.  If I buy them a ballet company, they'll have to invite me to join them.  That Annie Ziff and especially that Mercedes Bass have been smug around my Julia far too long.  The prissy Met board needs a real man on it.

McKenzie:    Wow.  That sounds like Heaven.  A place where I wouldn't have to actually train any dancers to be stars of the company because you would go out and buy them for me.

Koch:            Well, not exactly.  I've been meaning to tell you.  We're going to go with our guy Alexei.  But don't worry.  We're going to give you a nice 20th anniversary farewell party.

Kramer:        – and rest insured, I mean, assured that we'll find a nice rest home in academia for you.  Would you like to go to the North Carolina School of the Arts?  Dave and I bought a piece of that for just this type of transitional experience.

McKenzie:    Could I?

Kramer:        Hey Dave, our No Risk Academic-Success-For-All Excess Risk Policy is a steal. 

Koch:            My money will be happy to talk to your money anytime, Don.

Kramer:        I could make a donation to your new Americans for Prosperity in Art?

Koch:            Now you're talking.  Let's have tea, shall we?

Kramer:        In styrofoam cups, of course.

Koch:            Of course.

 

Comments

[K]

Amen. This is just getting more gross. I am pleased, however, that you are still finding the words to express how ridiculous this has become. Thank you.

[Julie]

Very funny! Great timing too--just after ABT announced Matvienko and Muntagirov are going to guest at ABT!

[Haglund]

Thanks K & Julie.

Why doesn't the dancers' union lodge a complaint with management?

I can probably answer my own question. Two Haglund'eelers said that they've written directly to ABT's press honcho, Kelly Ryan, and have received no replies whatsoever. So it seems that the corporate policy is not to respond to core customer complaints – a very Koch-like and very-big-insurance-company-like (Kramer) method of dealing with unpleasant issues.

[Julie]

Maybe ABT is following Hippocrates advice of "To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy"? Ignore the complaints and they will go away? ABT just seems to ignore the bad things that happen to them--they didn't announce Michele Wiles departure. It just whizzed by quietly and she was taken off their website.

[Haglund]

Julie, you're probably right on target.

[BCBNYC]

Brilliant! Thank you! BCBNYC

[Haglund]

Thank you, BCBNYC! I was afraid that the styrofoam references might not have been understood.